J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1831 > Staffa Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Loch Awe from near Dalmally 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Loch Awe from near Dalmally’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 85 Recto:
Loch Awe from near Dalmally 1831
D26908
Turner Bequest CCLXXIII 85
Pencil on white wove paper, 116 x 186 mm
Inscribed in blue ink by John Ruskin ‘85’ top left running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXIII 85’ top right running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sketch and another on 85 verso (D26909) of Dalmally and the north end of Loch Fyne seem to have been the first sketches that Turner made after a forty-mile break from sketching. During his journey up the length of Loch Fyne from East Tarbert (Kintyre) to Inverary, and from thence north to Loch Awe, Turner seems to have made no sketches, a fact that David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan explain is justified by him having sketched much of the route during a tour of 1801.1
The present sketch, according to Wallace-Hadrill and Carolan, shows a view down Loch Awe from a point near Dalmally, with a bridge crossing the River Orchy in the foreground. The foothills of Ben Cruachan are to the right, with the hills surrounding the western fork of the loch beyond them. The promontory in the middle distance at the left is presumably the one at the head of the loch, with Kilchurn Castle represented by a few box shapes. Folio 85 verso (D26909) shows a similar view. Turner made no further sketches of Loch Awe in 1831.
From Dalmally Turner made his way to Taynuilt (folio 84; D26906) on Loch Etive, either by the Pass of Brander, or by going back to Port Sonachan and crossing Loch Awe.2

Thomas Ardill
January 2010

1
Wallace-Hadrill and Carolan, ‘Turner in Argyll in 1831: Inveraray to Oban’, 1991, p.21; a later unpublished article by the same authors shows that Turner did not approach Inveraray via Loch Awe as assumed in ‘Turner in Argyll in 1831: Inveraray to Oban’; David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Turner Round the Clyde and in Islay – 1831’, 1991, Tate catalogue files, folio 11.
2
Wallace-Hadrill and Carolan, ‘Turner in Argyll in 1831: Inveraray to Oban’, 1991, pp.22–3.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Loch Awe from near Dalmally 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-loch-awe-from-near-dalmally-r1135265, accessed 23 April 2024.